Day, players too long for Vols, lose to LSU in overtime

by Joel Hollingsworth on Mar 9, 2007 7:27 AM EST in Tennessee Volunteer Basketball

. . . zzzzzzzzz . . .

Confession time. A show of hands, please, for those who abused their alarm clocks this morning. Okay, the rest of you are liars.

The Tennessee-LSU game tipped off at around 10:05 last night. It ended shortly thereafter when both teams, the crowd at the Georgia Dome (who'd been there since 1:00, the Rocky Top Talk commenters, and yours truly all promptly fell asleep.

Okay, so really, it was quite a game, but as Corn from a Jar said during the thread last night, it was much too late to begin a basketball game, and in the end, LSU was too tall, too long, and too motivated for the Vols. The Tigers, behind Glen "Big Baby" Davis and coach John "Just a Baby" Brady, beat the Vols in overtime, 76-67.

The end of regulation was a thing of beauty. With about 1:00 to go and Tennessee down by five, Ramar Smith hit a couple of free throws, and the team forced an OobTo (out of bounds turnover) and converted it into two more points. LSU made a tough basket on the other end to go up three, and Ramar Smith was again fouled on our ensuing possession. Smith hit the first. He missed the second, but JaJuan Smith came down with the rebound, and attempted a three for the lead. He missed, but none other than Christ Lofton tipped it in with a flare for a tie. LSU then ran down to the other end and made a basket but was called for a charge. Just a Baby immediately went berserk, but the officials then showed, uh, remarkable restraint and did not tee him up. With 7.3 remaining, J. Smith took the last shot for the Vols but missed, and the game went into overtime. The Tigers then pulled away and waved so long to the Vols.

Still, there's this: we're going to the NCAA Tournament, the one that really matters, and we'll have a week to rest and stew in a dissatisfied frame of mind.

We'll probably have an open thread for Selection Sunday, which is at 6:00 p.m., and a Rocky Top Talk bracket challenge, so be looking for that.

Oh, and 11% of y'all were right: We won none games in the SEC Tourney.

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Tough loss

Wonderful game, but I can't seem to shake the feeling of taking an uppper-cut to the chin. I was REALLY looking forward to watching at least 2 consectuive nights of UTBB, but I guess I'll have to do something else tonight and the rest of the weekend for that fact. The game was a classic example of the "both teams deserved to win" mentality.

Interesting fact: both the men's and women's LSU BB squads knocked the UT squads from the respective SEC tourney this year. Ouch.

by Aerobab on Mar 9, 2007 8:28 AM EST reply actions